The text popped up on my phone as I checked the notification, shaking my head with a quiet smile as I tapped out a response;

I sighed and slipped my phone back into my pocket, closing my eyes as I leaned back into the comfort of my Aunt’s atmoflyer. It was a mix between the helicopters and fixed-wing aeroplanes of the past, a sleek body supported by four short wings. The massive jet engine pods on the end of each were providing both the lift and the forward thrust as they silently shifted and rotated with the pilot’s inputs.

Most of the rich types had at least one dedicated for personal use at this point, a much safer and more luxurious ride than trusting the ground cars that rode among the often pissed off and occasionally violent lower class. I rolled my eyes and looked out the window. Those people on the ground level were often some of the nicest people out there, despite what my parents often complained about in regards to them. There had been more than one occasion where I’d considered running away, finding a nice commune somewhere and hiding. That was nothing more than a fantasy, however, considering the hell my parents would likely unleash to find me. Couldn’t have the ‘prodigal son’ running off and embarrassing them, even if they only really saw me as a tool for business deals.

The frame of the atmoflyer shuddered as the engines ramped up to landing power, and we twisted towards the landing pad on the side of the Fidaela Softworks building. I put my hand on the suitcase on the seat next to me, holding it in place as the flyer angled down and thumped gently down onto the landing pad. I got up, knowing that they wouldn’t like me loitering, pulling my bag to the large sliding door. It took only another second for the ground crew to slide it open, motioning for me to step out. No words were exchanged as the loud engines roared around us and I was led into the building.

The lobby I stepped into was very much that of a corporate scientific office. The walls were all a bland white which almost hurt to look at with the bright LED bulbs above. The only colour was the occasional potted plant in the corners of the room and the dull brown couches that looked like they were seldom used.

Aunt Lori was waiting for me in her typical grey suit with a lab coat over top, with another woman and man on either side of her. The woman was quite pretty with her pulled-back ginger hair, and she wore a green turtleneck and white lab coat. The man was handsome, I supposed, but he was far less welcoming than my aunt or the other scientist woman. He was wearing a tight black suit and was the definition of a corporate bootlicker. I took a dislike to him almost immediately.

“Myles, thank you for coming.” Aunt Lori said, stepping forward to give me a handshake. This was pretty typical when I visited her at work - appearances needed to be kept up, even if she hated them almost as much as I did. “This is Doctor Yvea, who will be in charge of the experiment, and Mister Steve Gavin. Mr. Gavin is our HR coordinator, and has your employment contract.”

“Yes. You will need to sign this now please, Mr. Vester.” The man, Mr. Gavin, stepped forward quickly, pushing a tablet at me with a long string of legal gibberish and a place to sign at the bottom. I glanced up at Aunt Lori, and though she was frowning, she gave me a nod. I briefly skimmed over the employment contract, seeing it was mostly your standard non-disclosure and non-compete bullshit. Pressing my thumb into the signature box, it took a scan and I handed the tablet back to the corporate drone. He took it, and with a brief nasty look at my aunt, he left us.

“Does Steve always need to act like a dick?” Doctor Yvea grumbled to herself, earning a quiet chuckle from my aunt.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Yes, he does.” Aunt Lori said back, “It’s the only way he’s able to relax enough for the shit to come out.”

That earned a proper laugh from both Doctor Yvea and myself, breaking the tension that had formed in the departure of the douchebag.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Myles. Ms. Vesper has always said good things about you, and I’m glad we have someone within the family here to work with as our tester.” The doctor said, also shaking my hand as she gave me a much more welcoming smile.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Doctor.” I returned it with a smile that looked a lot more confident than I felt. I always hated meeting new people, even if they were being friendly. And given I’d agreed to meet up with Soren later in the game, I’d likely go to bed socially exhausted.

A little bit more small talk happened before the conversation got gently segued. “Well, I need to get back to my office. I’m sure Steve has more he wants to pester me with, so I’ll leave you to take my nephew to the testing room and get him set up?” Aunt Lori said, turning her smile on me. I nodded, and we said our goodbyes. After a brief hug and a promise to send messages later, I was led by Doctor Yvea to the laboratories of the research and development teams.

The labs themselves were pretty typical of what you’d expect for a tech corporation, with a sideshow of chemistry for the suspension gels. Even with the breakthrough of matter transference technology, traditional development still needed to be done to learn more about the properties of what was being created and destroyed. I didn’t get much to look at though, not that I tried. Most of the sciences were above my head, and I’d learned pretty early on to only learn what I absolutely had to in order to pass the classes in my private schooling.

We quickly arrived at a room down a side hall from the main labs, labelled Testing Room 23. Doctor Yvea punched a code into the panel in the wall, and the door slid sideways open. Inside was the Behemoth Coffin, as my aunt had called it. There was monitoring equipment all around the room, which aside from the coffin looked like it was pulled out of a hospital.

“Is all this really that necessary?” I asked Doctor Yvea a little nervously, looking at just how much equipment was in the room to potentially keep me alive if something went wrong. It unnerved me a little bit.

“Not really, no.” She shook her head as she looked over all the machines. “Most of this was already here for previous efforts, but most of it is just extra equipment now. All we are really using is the monitoring system to display the readings from the Behemoth, but it never hurts to have extra tools on hand if things go wrong.”

“Okay, good…” I let out a small sigh of relief, thankful to hear that. As much as I trusted my aunt not to put me into anything dangerous, this scared me a little. “So… How do we do this?”

“Well, strip to your underwear and climb in. It should handle like a regular coffin for the most part, and you’ll be fully immersed before the needles enter your skin.” She explained, pressing a release button and opening the top of the coffin for me. “Do you want me to turn around until you get in?”

“Uh… Please, yes.” I quickly said, not wanting anyone to see my body. I was already self-conscious about it myself, I didn’t need any voyeurs making it worse. I quickly stripped, folding my clothes and setting them on my suitcase before climbing into the coffin. I began to pull the lid down as I called out, “I’m going in now, Doctor. See you in six months?”

She gave a chuckle, shaking her head as she waited for the pod to close before turning around. “I’ll talk to you in your Homepage more frequently than that. We’ll be talking at least once per week, if not more. Don’t worry, you’ll get an email explaining all the little details once the boot-up is done.”

“Sounds good.” I nodded. That made sense, they probably wanted to make sure I didn’t feel any side effects while I was under for so long. I let the pod close, taking a deep breath. I could feel the suspension gel being pumped into the pod, and I closed my eyes. The cool sensation of the molasses-like fluid surrounding my body was a welcome one as I readied myself for the full immersion.

Feeling a slight click in the back of my neck as the ports connected properly, I brought the mental command up to initialise systems. It felt like wearing a new pair of shoes for the first time as I interfaced with the newer tech, not uncomfortable but definitely different. Feeling the boot-up in my nervous system as a light tingle through my entire body, my whole world suddenly vanished into a black void.

A pulse emanated from where my unseen body was standing, and the Homepage suddenly came to life. Everyone had something different, but mine was a small cabin alone on an island in the middle of a lake. I breathed a sigh of relief as I felt the familiar, near perfectly realistic breeze come through the open patio doors and a smile crossed over my face. It was nice enough that I was able to forget for a moment that I was still in the body I had initially scanned from my real one. I knew people in VR that I spoke to offline too, so it made the most sense to just keep it as is. It was just… Easier that way.

Putting that to the back of my mind, I mentally pulled up the game selection dialogue and spoke. “Syl, launch the VRMMO game Stellara Nova. Load new character save file.”

The soft, genderless tone of the system AI replied, “Launching Stellara Nova under new character save file, Myles.”

“Thank you, Syl,” I replied back. I’d taken to calling it that when I’d gotten annoyed with having to say ‘system’ repeatedly. Plus, it played into my constant joke of ‘being nice to the future AI overlords’ I often made to my friends. Syl didn’t seem to care, for their part.

When I blinked, my sweet little cabin had vanished. It was replaced with an infinite starscape that stretched out around me in all directions.

“Welcome to Stellara Nova, player.”